


Lost

by FlightOfInsanity



Series: A Pair of Idiots [6]
Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Forerunners, M/M, they're not an otp til you break em right?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-06-06 13:39:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6756433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlightOfInsanity/pseuds/FlightOfInsanity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What do you do when you lose someone?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bornstellar's world comes crashing down.

When Bornstellar woke, Splendid Dust was gone.

It was unusual for a number of reasons. The first being that Splendid Dust was a stubborn sleeper. Not once had he ever gotten up first and, even if you could manage to wake him, he never liked to leave the bed and his cocoon of blankets. The second being that this particular day was a holiday across all of Bastion. It wasn’t celebrating any one particular thing, but more of a day of calm – a day where commerce and obligations were set aside and the residents of the Shield World were encouraged to take time to interact with friends and strangers.

There was no reason for the Councilor to have gone anywhere – the Council wasn’t in session and the Builder labs were all offline for the day. While it was possible Dust had just gotten up early, it was only possible in the same way it was _possible_ for the sky to rip open and pour forth a tidal wave of flowers.

Bornstellar frowned to himself and set about searching the house.

Bedroom – nothing. Study – nothing. Kitchen – nothing.

Nothing was out of place and none of the lights were up until Bornstellar entered the rooms. The only sign the Councilor had been anywhere out of the bed was the domicile ancilla’s report that his armor was gone. Standing in the main living area, Bornstellar was about to call Dust when he noticed a small blinking light on a panel near the door.

It was a message. Why Dust had decided to leave it here and not with the ancilla (which could have told Born immediately and saved him the trouble of searching) was a mystery.

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes and played the message.

“Hey, Born, listen. I know today is our off day, but I just got word from my Engineers and they say they had a breakthrough on the transit system a few hours ago. They need me to double-check the results and then we’ve got to see where we can go from there, but I think we might be close to getting the portals up and running again! I should only be gone for a few hours at most, and I’m going to get us both out of our responsibilities tomorrow to make up for it. See you soon!”

He should have guessed it was work. As much as he wanted to be upset, Dust’s excitement was palpable through the message and Bornstellar couldn’t help but be excited as well.

The Shield Worlds, true to the Ur-Didact’s original designs, had all been built with a network of portals that could be used to travel from one world to another without needing to access the space outside. Not only would it allow Forerunners to keep a semblance of normal society with different worlds and interplanetary commerce, but it would allow for the quick movements of Warriors and armaments across the galaxy if needed.

Presumably, the rest of the Shield Worlds all truly worked this way. Bastion had the portal system, just as any other Shield World did, but theirs didn’t work. The original designs hadn’t planned for the mass disruption of slipspace caused by the Halos, or for the gravitational forces they were subject to so close to the galaxy’s Eater. The same time dilation effect that allowed them to remove themselves from the rest of the galaxy was the same thing keeping them locked away on their own.

A system of passive probes and satellites formed a staggered relay chain that allowed them to listen in on the rest of the galaxy, but they could only relay data, not portals. Several times now they had gotten status alerts from various pieces of Forerunner technology. Multiple Halos had been powered up, powered down, powered back up, and even destroyed. The Ark reported major structural damage and violent loss of a replacement Halo. Most recently, Requiem had reported its activation and return to full operating status.

Bastion’s Council had started getting concerned at the first activity report from a Halo and they were more than a little curious about the exact details of what was happening in the rest of the galaxy. Builders and Engineers had gotten to work, trying to figure out how to reconfigure the portal system to counteract the gravity field and still connect properly to the rest of the Shield Worlds. So far they had hit mostly dead-ends and ended up with more questions than answers. A breakthrough, if that is what it was, was certainly something to be excited about.

According to the time on the message, Dust had run off a little over an hour ago. If his estimations were correct, he would only be gone a couple more so the day wasn’t an entire loss. And if they got the next day as well… Bornstellar decided this might have worked out better than they’d expected and set about keeping himself busy for the next couple of hours.

He was halfway through a workout routine when the ancilla pinged with an alert – an advisory to avoid the transit complex in the city. It was standard procedure when doing any sort of experiments with the portals or internal transit platforms, and Bornstellar paid it little mind. If they were setting up a test, their findings must have been bigger than they thought.

The summons he received from Chant a few minutes later – an urgent demand disguised as a request – to report to the transit complex was not standard. He was confused, but he quickly donned his armor and headed out.

With the transit systems down, it took longer than usual to reach the complex. As he approached, his confusion morphed into unease and then to worry. There was no smoke and no active flames, but he knew the smell of fire and carnage and wrecked Forerunner buildings and ships and knew something was wrong.

A quick tap into the Warrior network revealed little about the situation, but showed Glory was already in control of security around the area. She was a more than capable Warrior, so why had Chant called him? The Warriors were running security and a team of Engineers and Lifeworkers appeared to be getting the rest of the situation under control. There was no reason for him to be here unless…

No.

He shook his head; he was not going to go down that mental road.

He located Chant and hurried over to her, Warriors letting him pass with no questions or objections. She turned as he approached, her face a mask of forced calm.

“What happened?”

“They think it some sort of power surge, but they’re not sure what caused it. The portal node here is destroyed and they were worried about it cascading through the rest of the transit system so they shut everything down.”

Bornstellar nodded. That much made sense. The word “destroyed” brought back the worry he’d tried to ignore.

“Is he– I mean, are they–” He couldn’t bring himself to finish either question.

Chant’s face flashed with a series of expressions, none of them good.

No. Dust was fine.

“It, um… it doesn’t look good.” she started. She looked away and took a breath. “We found two Engineers dead, torn up by the explosion, and one barely still alive. The ancilla says there was a team of five, but…”

She trailed off and Bornstellar felt his heart drop.

A team of five. _Dust’s_ team of five. And they’d only found...

_No._

He was alive. Dust was _alive_ and he was _fine_.

He had to be.

**Author's Note:**

> I have some vague ideas of where this story might be heading, but we'll see what happens. 
> 
> ps - I will try to think of a better summary later. :\


End file.
